TV SCHEDULE BOUND AND TABBED

Pages of unbound weekly schedule distributed with newspaper are uneven and unruly, and a particular day's program grid can be hard to find. Improved ease of use and convenience make these fixes worth the effort to me.
I depend on the very localized weekly TV schedule distributed with my newspaper. TV Guide Magazine does not cover my local stations satisfactorily, and on-screen electronic program guide is not available on my off-antenna channels. Even after all stations go digital in the U.S., not all will provide electronic program guides. My newspaper guide arrives as loose pages 12 inches high by about 23 inches wide, folded unevenly. I straighten the pages and staple them along a new center crease, then add tabs to mark the program grids for each evening. My dimensions might need to be adjusted to fit folios having other page layouts.
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Unclesam

Fine line Sharpie marker; 2 spring binder clips; straight edge; 7 strips, each about three-quarters of an inch wide by one-and-a-half inches long, cut from Post-It note pad;
long-reach stapler: handy for many household uses, not carried in retail office supply stores, but offered for $30 on their web sites. I bought mine by mail from buyonlinenow.com, for about half that, including shipping and handling, and it can place a staple 13 inches from the edge of a page. Mine's brand name is Sparko, but I believe the quality of all the brands are the same and they are probably all made in the same factory in China. I first tried folding one side of the TV schedule pages over a couple times so I could reach staples to the center fold using a conventional stapler, but the bunch of paper prevented the stapler from closing and clenching the staples.

Fold only the cover sheet in half, then mark its new center crease on its outside (line has been exaggerated and staple locations marked only for photo purposes). Stack all the sheets flat with edges aligned and bind with clips.

Apply center staple first, then the two outboard of it. Remove the clips and add two more staples, then fold and crease the entire folio along the line of staples.

Each tab should adhere just above its day's evening schedule grid and be long enough so its top will protrude about three-quarters of an inch above the top edge of the newspaper. Abbreviate each day of the week on the non-sticky side of the non-sticky end of a tab with the Sharpie, which will bleed through the yellow paper, then trace the bled-through letters on the other side of each tab. The lettering on some of my tabs reads backward when viewed from the front cover. My newspaper consistently prints the evening schedules of some days on right-hand pages and others on left-hand pages. The tabs that have their lettering backward quickly tell me that those days are on left-hand pages. I abbreviated those days with two letters to make it quickly obvious that they appear backward and to make the day abbreviations unambiguous. The tabs can be reused many times and still retain their adhesion, and after several months use I have yet to make a second set. I determined a roughly even spacing between the tabs by experiment, then marked each with the location along the top of its day's grid where it should be placed on each new weekly schedule. Photo shows the Sunday tab marked and placed at the left edge of the evening grid for Sunday's left-hand page.

Photo shows the marking and placement for Monday's tab on its evening grid's right-hand page. The spacing I used for the tabs on my Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance-Star TV STAR is SU left edge, M 1030, TU 730, W 800, TH 915, F 615 and SA 1130. Once all seven tabs are in place, the schedule is ready for quick reference.
CREDITS:  Photo background made of genuine pegboard.